Saturday, December 11, 2010

Celebrity Toons: Punky Brewster (1985)

NBC had a surprise hit on their hands with the Sunday night sitcom Punky Brewster, so the network decided it would have a companion series airing on Saturday mornings. Most sites claim the toon is titled, It's Punky Brewster, although as you'll see when you look at the clip below, the word "It's" doesn't really appear on the title card.

Smartly, the series cast, including Soleil Moon Frye and George Gaynes, crossed over from the live-action series. Predictably, Ruby-Spears, which produced the cartoon with the network, added a cute funny animal character, a leprechaun-gopher, Glomer (Frank Welker), who got Punky in & out of all kinds of situations. 26 episodes of the cartoon were produced, and lasted 4 seasons as a result, factoring in reruns and NBC's need to keep the show on the air to recoup production costs.